The Society of Saint Gregory the Great is a membership association of Catholic laity formed in 2008 to promote divine worship in accordance with the Supreme Magisterium of the Church. The Society has its own schola cantorum, and regularly sponsors presentations and workshops on the Sacred Liturgy, Gregorian chant, and sacred polyphony.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Angels, Demons, and Healing: Fr. Eric Andersen

This is Fr. Eric Andersen's homily for Sunday, July 12, 2015, taken from his Face Book page.

Fr. Eric M. Andersen
St. Stephen Catholic Church
July 12th, 2015

Dominica XV Per Annum, Anno B

“The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were
sick and cured them."

When God created the heavens and all things invisible, He created the
angels. St. Paul writes (elsewhere in the scriptures) about thrones, dominions,
principalities, and powers (Col. 1:16); elsewhere again about the virtues (Eph
1:21); angels (Heb. ch.1), archangels (1 Thess. 4:15), and cherubim (Heb. 9:5).
The scriptures give us one other type of angel called seraphim (Is. 6:2). That
makes nine different ranks or choirs of angels. Each of these nine choirs of
angels are hierarchically ordered. We acknowledge that each of the various
hierarchies exercise different offices, some higher and some lower. In order to
learn about the science of angelology, we can look to one of the Church Fathers
named Dionysius the Areopagite in his work, “The Celestial Hierarchy.” We can
also look to St. Thomas Aquinas.

St. Thomas, keeping with Dionysius the Areopagite, “divides the
angels into three hierarchies each of which contains three orders.” So,
there are three sets of three. They are ranked and ordered according to their
proximity to the God: The Supreme Being. “In the first hierarchy he
places the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; in the second, the Dominations,
Virtues, and Powers; in the third, the Principalities, Archangels, and Angels”(cf.
Pope, Hugh. "Angels." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.
New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. pg. 478 (column II). 11 Jul. 2015 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01476d.htm>.).

Venerable Prosper Gueranger writes that “It is from the lowest
of the nine choirs, the nearest to ourselves, that the Guardian Angels are for
the most part selected” (The Liturgical Year. Vol. XIV. Feast of the
Guardian Angels). By this he is saying that the guardian angels may be called
from among the other choirs of angels, but principally from among the lowest
choir which are called angels. Other angelologists (cf. “Our Guardian Angel”
available from Opus Sanctorum Angelorum. http://www.opusangelorum.org/Books/Books.html) teach that
our guardian angels are assigned to us from among all nine choirs of angels
according to our needs, our talents, and our personality. To understand this,
let’s look back at each of the nine choirs of angels to see what each of them
do. Venerable Prosper Gueranger continues:

“God reserves to the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones the honour of following
His Own immediate court. The Dominations, from the steps of His throne, preside
over the government of the universe; the Virtues watch over the course of
nature's laws, the preservation of species, and the movements of the heavens;
the Powers hold the spirits of wickedness in subjection. The human race in its
entirety, as also its great social bodies, the nations and the churches, are
confided to the Principalities; while the Archangels, who preside over smaller
communities, seem also to have the office of transmitting to the Angels the
commands of God, together with the love and light which come down even to us
from the first and highest hierarchy.” (The Liturgical Year. Vol. XIV. Feast of the Guardian
Angels).

Each of us has a holy guardian angel. That holy angel will have been taken from
among these nine choirs of angels and during the time of our life on earth,
that angel will serve us and guard and protect us. He will encourage us to
virtue and holiness. But there are other angels who are not holy. These angels
seek to discourage us and tempt us to turn from God.

In the beginning, there was an angel from among the highest choir––the
seraphim––who refused to stoop to serve a mere man. He said, Non
serviam! “I will not serve,” and by those words, he fell taking
with him a third of the angels. Our Lord tells us elsewhere that He watched
satan fall like lightening from heaven. Those angels spend their time prowling
about the earth for the ruin of souls. We can call them fallen angels or
demons.

So there are holy angels who encourage us and demons who discourage us.
This is nothing to squirm about. Each of us encounters temptation every day of
one sort or another. It is common to refer to a temptation as a demon or a
spirit. For instance, if one is tempted to doubt a truth of the faith, one
could acknowledge the doubt itself to be a spirit. It is the spirit of doubt
that tempts one to doubt God. There is a spirit of jealousy, a spirit of
unforgiveness, a spirit of self-pity, a spirit of sloth, pride, lust, etc. We
can just as well call them spirits as we do demons.

When the gospel says that “The Twelve drove out many demons” this
is the context. Some are more afflicted by demons than others. The Twelve drove
out demons from those who were possessed, those who were oppressed, those who
were obsessed, those who were harassed, and from those who were merely fighting
normal temptations. This must happen before a person can be healed by
anointing. The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is referred to as a
Sacrament for the living. The Church acknowledges that among the seven
sacraments there are two sacraments of the dead and five sacraments of the
living. The sacraments of the dead are baptism and penance: “sacraments
of the dead aim to give sanctifying grace to one spiritually dead through sin” (LaRavoire
Morrow, My Catholic Faith, pg. 251). “Sacraments of the
living are those that may be received only by one living in the state of grace” (ibid.).

So first we must be given life; then that life may be healed. In the
gospel, the Twelve first drove out the demons, then they anointed the sick and
cured them. We see this in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, aka., the
Anointing of the Sick. One must be living in order to receive the healing grace
of the Sacrament of Anointing. It is a sacrament of the living in order to
prepare for a holy death which leads one to eternal life.

The Council of Trent teaches us that the Sacrament of Extreme Unction,
aka the Anointing of the Sick, is the completion of the Sacrament of Penance.
Many are under the mistaken belief that the Anointing of the Sick forgives
one’s sins. That is not true unless one is unconscious or unable to confess due
to illness which would prevent it. In that case, the sacrament supplies the
grace for the forgiveness of sins provided that one intends to confess. But
ordinarily, as long as one is able to confess, then one must confess
sacramentally to a priest first, and then receive the anointing as the
completion of the Sacrament of Penance.

Good health is not only physical, but also spiritual, mental, and
emotional. When we are in a state of sanctifying grace, the Holy Spirit fills
our souls and we are truly alive and we are truly healthy. We receive this
health when we get rid of the spirits of anger, bitterness, unforgiveness,
jealousy, self-righteousness, pride, lust, etc., in the sacrament of Penance.
We make a good confession and ask God to banish all of these spirits, these vices
and sins in the name of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit then comes to fill our
souls. This is what our holy guardian angels will constantly encourage us to
do. The fallen angels will constantly try to discourage us and fill us with
fear and anxiety about going to Confession. They know that Confession will give
us peace, and health, and eternal life. Our enemies prowl about the earth
seeking the ruin of souls by spreading anxiety, sickness and death.

Let us not listen to the voices of the fallen angels. Let us listen to
the voices of the holy angels: our holy guardian angel, the holy archangel of
this parish, the holy principality of this archdiocese and of this nation. But
in order to hear the voices of the holy angels, we must listen. We must pray and
we must have silence in our life. The demons will try to fill our ears and our
eyes with noise and distractions. At the grocery store, we are bombarded with
tabloids celebrating vice and scandal. Where will we hear the encouraging
message of holiness, purity, and virtue if we do not listen to our guardian
angels? We must listen and we must repeat what they say to us. We must
also be the voices of our guardian angels to the rest of the world. We must
counter the messages of vice and scandal by our good example of living well and
encouraging others to seek truth, goodness, beauty, and to live lives of virtue
and holiness. We must be the voice of such things in this world because nobody
else is going to do it. If the Church does not speak up, and if Christians do
not encourage one another, then who will speak out against the evils of the
world?

Let us first confess our sins and ask Jesus Christ to drive out the
demons so that we can be healed. Let us listen to our own guardian angels, and
then be as guardian angels to one another and to the world, repeating their
holy words of encouragement. Let us seek to counter the voices of
discouragement and offer the hope of healing to a wounded world.